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tv   Hardball With Chris Matthews  MSNBC  September 8, 2009 5:00pm-6:00pm EDT

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congressman charles goose taney gives the republican response to obama's address. finally, one other big thing we'll be watching tomorrow, supreme court is hearing an oral argument on a case, a big and important case that could end up overturning past restrictions on corporations and unions and their activity in political advertising campaigns. >> let me ask you, oftentimes when the media calls something a major speech for the president you will see the white house trying to down play expectations. have we seen anything of the like there or are they willing to carry the story line that this is the big one here? >> they really want to carry the story line this is the big one. one of the reasons behind that is, a lot of people on capitol hill, interest groups and others have been looking for is obama and leadership. whether he's going to grab the reigns of this debate and drive it. as we're playing up the importance of this speech, that gives him a prime opportunity to
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accomplish that mission. >> mark murray, nbc deputy political director. make sure to check out "first read" every morning, updated throughout the day. log on to firstread.msnbc.com. after the show i'm going to show the clip where i referred to u-2's lead as bono, not bono. >> you keep bringing up this mistake that i called the director a dictator. that's the "big picture" today. i'm tamron hall. >> i'm david shuster. "hardball" starts right now. a make or break week for president obama. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm mike barnicle in tonight for chris matthews. leading off tonight, obama's big moment. president obama is facing, perhaps, the most important and consequential week yet of his presidency. it all begins with health care in his speech to a joint session of congress tomorrow night.
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then there's afghanistan. the september 11th anniversary. stubbornly high unemployment and growing unease about the deficit. add to that the fence that the president is being shaped by events more he is shaping them. whether he can turn that around may say a lot about how successful a president he will be. every republican has decided to just say no to anything the president proposes. plus he's faced with this inconvenient truth. liberal democrats won't vote for a health care plan without a public option. moderate democrats won't vote for one with it. two congressional democrats who fall on either side of this issue will be here in just a moment. speaker nancy pelosi among those demanding a public option will hold a news conference in half an hour. we'll cover it live and get reaction. plus, was the white house asleep at the switch when the right wing attack machine went after the president on all fronts? they translated health care reform into death panels and killing grandma and turned
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today's back to school speech into socialist indocket nation. the white house says it's going to fight back. we'll see. finally, after serving seven years in prison, former congressman jim traffic cant managed to compare himself to nelson mandela. that's where it belongs to the "hardball" sideshow. we begin with president obama's big moment. chuck todd is nbc news chief white house correspondent and political director. jonathan martin is politico's senior political writer. gentlemen, let's start with you, chuck, as you know better than most, chuck. i've been around a long time. i've got to tell you, this furor over the president's school speech to students, the continuing jam over which democrats are with him on health care, which aren't, and the continuing prognostications about all the different polls out there as the obama presidency at an end? what is going on here? >> reporter: well, i think, you
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know, i talked to one outside democratic adviser to this white house and it was put to me this way, that, look, they are aware in many ways this fall, and how -- and frankly, it starts tomorrow -- that the white house and the president, himself, is taking a character and leadership test. that this is a moment in time for him to show he can take control of a debate, he can take control of his party. he can figure out a way to cut through some of the problems of sausage making inside of his own party and maybe not about figuring out how to stop polarization among the two political parties. i don't think any one person can end that, but in a minimum becoming a leader, leading his own party out of this health care jam, if you would. i don't think they would describe it as a mess, but it's clearly a political jam. there's only one person that can lead him out of it.
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so, in many ways if they look at tomorrow's speech as a chance to test his character and show off his character, that that might be a step in the right direction in fixing this perception problem that, mike, i think you're hitting at. >> jaup than, what are you hearing in your reporting? we hear from some sources that the president is going to step up to the plate and, you know, get a little tougher than he has been in the past. he's got a problem clearly with speaker pelosi or some issue with speaker pelosi. seems to be a split with majority leader steny hoyer. what are you hearing? >> well, chuck, as usual is exactly right. the fact is this president is not going to be able to transcend the partisan divide in this country. it's apparently gotten worse. it's not gotten any better. where he can be successful is by trying to get his own party in line in finding some consensus among congressional democrats. if it he can do that that's going to lead to a victory on health care. i talked to a lot of democrats today, mike, for a story that
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i'm doing. you know, they are confused themselves because of this right-wing attack machine you mentioned. the fact is if you're the president of the united states and you're in the white house, do you engage these folksen to the right wing or ignore them? if you ignore them you've got the sort of death panels that start setting in. if you engage them, does that diminish your office? it's a really tough question. clearly it was a very tough summer in large part because the white house didn't know what to do with some of these forces on the right that earlier drove the conversation on health care. >> chuck, that gets to, you know, back to the school prayer thing i mentioned at the top. i found the controversy over it kind of depressing. sort of people out there having no confidence in their own parenting skills no matter what the president would say in school. it's easy to get isolated in the white house. we all know that. yet, there are elements of that debate where the president was going to say, wash your hands,
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respect your teachers, do your homework, respect yourself, and for that message to be so misconstrued out there, are they aware of how incendiary this stuff is? >> well, i tell you, you know, in many ways, it's my understanding, you know, yesterday the president went to cincinnati, afl-cio picnic. everybody came away and went, whoa, where did that guy come from? all of a sudden candidate obama was standing in for president obama. he was fiery, he was -- looked in a good mood but sort of stern and seemed to just want to -- want to light the supporters, you know, on fire. get them fired up. get them behind him rallying almost in campaign mode. because he, himself, was frustrated by how this school speech was treated. the white house had this attitude, look, they were blowing it off. last week robert gibbs referred to it as this is the silly
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season trying to be dismissive of it. not any more. these guys want to engage directly on some of this stuff. go ahead and take some of these folks on. it may be a fringe in their mind starting these stories but the problem they've got is when you've got 20% to 25% of america, eventually that's the message they get is from that fringe. then they feel like they've got to beat this back because they can't -- they can't be having 20% to 25% of the population not getting their side of the story at all. >> jonathan, before you jump in on what chuck was just telling us, let's listen to president obama, a bit of it yesterday in cincinnati. >> and because we're so close to real reform, people in the special interest are doing what they always do which is just trying to scare the heck out of people. but i've got a question for all these folks who say, you know, we're going to pull the plug on grandma and this is all about
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illegal immigrants. you've heard all the lies. i've got a question for all those folks. what are you going to do? what's your answer? what's your solution? and you know what? they don't have one. >> jonathan? your thoughts, please? >> well, i've always thought when this president gets further away from that building that chuck's standsing in front of now, he's much more effective. there's something about the marvel in washington that sort of takes the fire away from this president. once he's out there in a place like cincinnati talking to organized labor, for example, this summer when he was campaigning for jon corzine in new jersey, you saw a similar, more sort of campaign-style president. he's much more effective. part of the challenge was he wasn't spending all summer in that public campaign mode.
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a lot of the negotiations were behind closed doors with the american hospital association, with members of congress. it was more of an inside game. he was not sort of doing the outside game at full force all summer long like he was there yesterday in cincinnati. look, i think the back to school episode, you mentioned, and this van jones incident, the white house adviser was forced out over the weekend. if those two incidents are not sort of opening the eyes of a lot of folks in this white house about the still resonant power of the right wing in this country, i don't know what's going to. >> chuck, health care tomorrow night. barack obama's president of the united states. there's a certain element of power there. >> reporter: there is. i think what you're doigoing toe tomorrow is this. if the speech is successful, mike, joe and jane in kansas city, missouri, are going to be able to tell you what president obama's health care plan is, period. so then if that is what happens tomorrow and he successfully can
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do that, outline how to pay for it, outline how things should be covered, even deal with this issue of the public option, he may deal a little bit with the issue of bipartisanship, but i don't think they're going to get into political process a lot. i really think it's going to be about the specifics of what reform would look like after eis implemented. today was a lot of sausage making today on pennsylvania avenue. behind the scenes you're starting to see what's going to happen. on this issue of public option, it's never going to die. it may not be implemented. it is now going to be -- we call it a trigger. it's actually a terrible term to try to explain. the threat of the public option on private insurance. that is a belief that centrist democrats are buying into and it may be enough to keep the left who really want a public option to say, okay, you know, and that's where they're coming
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together. that looks like where everything seems to be coming together today, which by the way, the big victory for public option advocates. you know what we're not talking about? this idea of the co-ops. the kent conrad idea, granted try to explain that in 30 seconds and i won't. that seems to have faded. >> yeah. try 30 days you couldn't explain it. jonathan, you agree with chuck on that? >> i was going to say chuck's points are very, very shrewd. politically, what the trigger does it provides cover for liberal democrats who have gone out on a limb and say, look, there's no way we can support a bill with no public option. if they contain the trigger option, those democrats can make the argument i'm voting for a bill that has public option language in there. at the same time you bring home the moderate democrats in the senate from red states who are wary of a public option. >> chuck, before we go, this is a rather sensitive issue. i wonder if there's any sense within the white house that you hear, that you pick up, that they think race might be a part
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of this argument against everything that the president does? >> reporter: even on background, they will never touch that. >> right. >> reporter: they don't want to go near it. they don't want to be accused of crying race. remember, it would come up in the campaign and you would have back and forth sort of accusing them. oh, look, by saying something might have to do with race, obama's playing the race card. they're very concerned. they don't ever want -- they will never talk about it as an excuse. outside, advisers, outside advisers to this white house that's usually the quickest way they go to it. they say, if you look at these polls, it's the southern, it's mostly, you know, you look at the school speech. it was a lot of -- it was places in the south that were reactive. so you get a lot of people saying, hey, two plus two plus two plus two eventually equals eight here and maybe it has to do with something with race. this white house doesn't want to touch that. >> right. that is both interesting and
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depressing, gentlemen. chuck todd, jonathan martin, thanks very much. coming up, president obama's biggest challenge tomorrow night may be getting his own party to get on the same page about health care reform. we'll talk to two house democrats. one who is demanding public option and one who's more willing to compromise. that's next. [ thinking ] burning, itching... but the pain's the worst. i shoulda used... [ bump ] [ male announcer ] preparation h cream. burning, itching, plus maximum strength pain relief, on contact.
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the most complete relief, from preparation h. pain relief on contact. coming up, why is the right wing attack machine so effective against president obama and can the white house do anything to neutralize it? uct do women thin? according to a study presented by better homes and gardens, definity color recapture. it corrects the look of wrinkles and discoloration. 50,000 voters. one brilliant winner. we will not be quiet. ♪ when we're in a sandwich, you'll know it. we are our own mixed up blend of one of a kind spices. we are miracle whip. and we will not tone it down.
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zblvrmgts welcome back welcome back to "hardball." will congress pass a health care bill that doesn't include a public option? democrat from maine and a democrat from virginia. two people on the same sides and yet maybe not on the same side so much. congresswoman, let's start with you. if there is no public option
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included in the bill that hits the house floor at some point down the road, will you vote for it or against it? >> that would be a tough one for me. i've already said i'd vote against a bill that doesn't have a public option. it's a huge issue to me in terms of really reforming health care. for my constituents, many of whom think we should have a single-payer health care plan, this is middle ground, moving to the right. they're very worried about the debate going on. i would be concerned if they don't have a public option. >> you're not going to tell you how you'd vote, yes or no, right? >> today i'd vote no. i mean, you know, you never know what the next configuration would be, but i signed on to a letter saying i won't vote for a bill with a public option. without a public option. i wanted to be very clear to the president and my colleagues that in my experiences on health care i come from maine, we've done a lot of work with insurance companies. what i hear from people is, you know, why would you want to help out the insurance companies? that's where the problem is.
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when people say to us, well, it won't be a level playing field if you don't -- if you put a public option in, you know, i have to say, i didn't get elected to make sure insurance company companies made huge profits. i'm here to make sure we have an equitable plan to the people can afford their health care and we really expand it and have major reform. for me right now that is essential. >> congressman conley, public option doesn't hit your hot button in terms of final version of the bill, is it? >> i support a public option. i endorsed a public option. it's not a matter of thee yololo me. i want to get on a path to yes for health care reform legislation. i'm not there yet. i have other problems with the bill. a public option, if it is an instrument that can broaden access and bring down insurance costs by providing kovrp tigs, i'm all for it.
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if there's another way for doing the same thing, i'm for that too. i'm unwilling to draw a bright line in the sand over that particular aspect of health care reform. >> you said you had other problems with the bill as it's being forecadrafted right now. who are those other problems? >> there are lots of discreet issues with could talk about. two problems. i don't like the surcharge that's been proposed here in the house. i think it hurts a lot of folks in my area of the world, northern virginia, but it also hurts small businesses. before we start talki ining abo revenue enhancement, i want to be convince and the public wants to be convince we've left no rock unturned. example, the drug kpaenls put $80 billion on the table for voluntary savings. the insurance companies which shelley mentioned and i agree with her, the biggest profit makers in the whole system, $0
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on the table. we can do better. >> congresswoman pingree, you heard congressman connolly saying he wants to get to yes. so tell me, given the seemingly split, some say it's minor, some say it's major, between the speaker of the house nancy pelosi who's going to be speaking in a few minutes, i guess, and steny hoyer, a split over public option. how do you navigate to yes if that, indeed, is your goal? is it your goal, too? >> absolutely. i think we all want to get to yes. remember, i come from the state with senator olympia snowe who is visibly working with the white house to see if there are other options in the senate. i as well as anybody understand the importance of negotiating, the prorimportance of getting a final bill that allows us to move forward. i agree with a lot of things gerry says. things like making sure we negotiate with the
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pharmaceutical manufacturers to bring down the price of prescription drugs. that's essential to lowering the cost here. i do think there's a lot of work to be done in making sure we lower costs. if we don't come out with a strong bill from the house, i believe that has to have a public option, that it really has to fight back against the insurance companies that has to show massive amounts of reform, when we get to negotiating with the senate, we will already have moved too far in what will be a complicated conference process. so while everybody kind of wants to know today, declare where you are, what are you going to do here, you mentioned it earlier. this is sausage making. there's a lot of complicated maneuvering going to have to go on to get us from here to there. i think everybody knows the president wants to pass a bill. this congress wants to pass a bill. at least for me, with whatever dispute went on with our constituents this summer, the one thing i heard loud and clear was, get this fixed. work together. find a solution. >> mike, if i could add to that, in some ways it's an academic question. i think chellie and i would
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agree. it's hill lou unlikely anything would pass the floor of the house of representatives without a strong public option. >> congressman gerry connolly. congresswoman pin gree. jim trough cant is out of prison and has advice for all of us. that's next on "the sideshow." i'm here on this tiny little plane, and guess what... i've still got room for the internet. with my new netbook from at&t. with its built-in 3g network, it's fast and small, so it goes places other laptops can't. anything before takeoff mr. kurtis? prime rib, medium rare. i'm bill kurtis, and i've got plenty of room for the internet. and the nation's fastest 3g network. (announcer) sign up today and get a netbook for $199.99 after mail-in rebate. with built-in access to the nation's fastest 3g network. only from at&t. are you all right? a ferocious white whale wrecked my boat. well, i'm sure we can help you, captain...
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i love that music. i just love it. back to "hardball." time for "the sideshow." shout it from the mountain to be. former illinois governor rod blagojevich was on the "today" show this morning to promote his new book. no surprise here. blago's not giving an inch on
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those charges he tried to sell barack obama's senate seat. >> you're not this person and belief you want to tell the people who hired you and trusted you that you didn't trust them down. you look for the highest mountaintop you find and you want to shout out, "it just ain't so." no one hears you if you're on top of the mountain. next best thing is to write a book. if what i'm saying is true, and the tapes will bear out what i say. it's the prosecution that will not allow us to have the tapes heard publicly. if what i say is true is true, somebody is lying here and it's not me. if a governor was stolen by office by false accusations knowingly given, then seriously something is upside down. >> i tell you what is not upside down is his hair. great hair. watch blago's turn on "hardball" this monday the 14th. speaking of trouble with the law, former congressman jim trafficant got out of the prison after serving four years on charges. he gave a speech at his welcome
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home bash invokes, who else? nelson mandela. trafficant put his own twist saying, quote, if you want to know the true nature of a country you must go through its prisons. i know america, identify seen the other side of it and i don't like it. unquote. trafficant told supporters, the government had to cheat to convict him. he announced further major announcements by the end of this week. the politico is out with its list of the top washington, d.c., area party animals. guess what? "hardball" regulars made the list. maurg rhett carlton of bloomberg news. howard fineman of "news week." crazy, crazy party animals, all of them. they've got it all written all over them. joe kennedy ii announced this weekend he will not be running for his uncle ted's senate seat in massachusetts which means no kennedys are in
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the mix in that special election. you could call this the end of an era. how long has massachusetts had a kennedy in congress? about 62 straight years. there was a brief blip between 1961 and 1962 when jack kennedy became president and ted kennedy won a special election to the senate, but it looks like the 62-year streak of massachusetts-based kennedys in congress has come to an end. that, 62, is tonight's "big number." up next, why is the conservative right so angry at everything president obama does, from his speech today to schoolchildren to his efforts to reform health care? the right wing attack machine is powered up against the president's every move. what the white house can do to combat it, next. [ominous music] [screeching] [dejectedly] oh. [screeching] [barks] (man) if you think about it,
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i'm scott cone with your cnbc market wrap. stocks closed higher as oil prices surged. a high profile takeover bid, ho hopes. s&p 500 up nine points. nasdaq gined 19 points. a weakening dollar drove a bounce in oil prices today. crude surged $3, biggest jump since july to settle at more than $72 a barrel. shares in cadbury jumped after rejected a takeover bid from kraft foods. kraft is ready to sweeten the offer. tech sector, analyst upgrade for amd helped push the nasdaq higher. chip maker shares raising 14.5% on the news. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. now back to "hardball."
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welcome back to "hardball." the right wipg attack many sheen ginned up fights against president obama on every front from his efforts to overhaul health care to his work in rescues the economy to his back to school speech today to students. so has the white house ignored these attacks for too long? what do they need to do at this point? pat buchanan, msnbc political analyst. david corn, "mother jones." pat buchanan knew mother jones. let's start with you, pat. >> i also was part of the right wi wing attack machine. >> pat, we were speaking earlier, chuck todd was on earlier from the white house. i told him i have been amazed at the furor that has developed over president obama's speech today to students. high school and some grammar
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school students, basically saying do your homework, wash your hands so you don't get the flu, respect your parents, respect your teachers and respect yourself. what is going on? what is the deal here? >> well, there's nothing wrong with the speech, itself. it was a good speech to students. i'll tell you what it's all about, mike. the atmosphere and the politics in this town are thoroughly poisoned across the board right now. this was just an occasion where barack obama said he's going to talk to the students and all the sudden the students had these workbooks they were going to work on. back in 1991 george busch first went out to alice deal june jor your high school right up the street. attacked by the "washington post" of using students as props. lamar alexander education secretary called to the hill. the gao ordered to investigate the whole thing. it's a poisoned political atmosphere. this was dropped into the middle of it. >> david, how did it get so
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toxic? >> well, i -- if you remember back to the campaign, i would go to these mccain/palin rallies. there were people there attacking barack obama, literally saying he's a communist, hangs out with terrorists, that he's not legitimate, he's not a natural-born citizen, could never become president if elected. there is the slice of the public out there, 5%, 10%, 15%, listen, they're wackos. they cannot stand this guy. they'll fight him on every front. you have people like sarah palin, what she doing today? out there insisting the health care reform bill does include death panels though the aarp, the ama and expert group that's looked at the issue say they don't include death panels. this is irrational behavior driven by obama hatred and people who can't accept him. you have to at least question whether some of those people, not all, but for some of them there is a racial element to it.
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>> look, what has happened with barack obama is he's gone from 70% to 50% in his health care proposal. it's not 15% against it. it's a majority of the country that's against it. you have tremendous numbers of people coming out. 2,500 people show up in the middle of august in reston, virginia, a laidback community, to shout at the former chairman of the democratic party. the point is, this country's very nationally polarized over health care. obama has lost the cachet that he's had. it's not simply rush limbaugh that's done that or the folks over at fox news. it's the country that's losing confidence in this guy. >> listen, the polls still show a majority believe in health care reform. that 70% of so favor a public option. i mean, it's not as if there's a popular revolt. there are people being vocal. holding up signs accusing him of lennism and getting on tv. >> that's probably because we're
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putting them on tv. let's talk about those death panels, for example. what sarah palin said today is exactly right. the whole health care proposal cutting costs is leading to rationed care. in the last six months of life where all the expenses are done. people are going to be told, there are procedures, there are drugs and there are surgeries which we're no longer going to give you. in cases with people with alzheimer's, these decisions are going to be made. is the phrase death panels in there? no, it's not. >> wait a minute. pat, david, wait a minute. wait a minute. we have an update on sarah palin. she was invited to testify before the new york state senate aging committee. she refused. instead of testifying she submitted written testimony and said, basically, that death panels would be included. she wrote, quote, a great deal of attention was given to my use of the phrase death panel in discussing such rationing despite repeated attempts by many in the media to dismiss this phrase as a myth. its accuracy has been
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vindicated. >> all right. let me tell you exactly what she meant by these, which was in the bill and which baucus says is adamant. if you've got, say, some cancer and it spreads, say, to the liver. in that case you get an authorized individual paid by medicare who comes to your house and gives you your options. if you are alone, one of those options, one of those resources. hold it. they have a death or dignity law or give them a pamphlet to visit those folks. >> listen, i'll give you this piece i'm holding in my hand. ap, no death panel in health care bill. the national right to life committee that you usually agree with, pat, they say there are no death panels. there's nothing mandatory. this is end of life counseling. that is only voluntary. there's no such thing as a death panel. sarah palin is not correct. the ama, the aarp -- no one says
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they're there. >> pat, go ahead. >> the phrase death panels is not in the legislation. all right. the entity, you say, is not there. an individual who is authorized and paid by medicare finds out that your cancer has spread, they're authorized to come and tell you what your options are. in a legislation which is designed to cut health care costs in the last six months of life. >> it's voluntary, pat. end of rights care, you can get it. that's all it says. >> you don't ask for it. they come to the house. >> it's voluntary. you have to -- >> let me ask -- let me ask both of you guys this. let's get away from the specifics of what's in the bill, what's not in the bill. go to one of my cockamamy theories. pat, you first. here's my theory. a large element of what's going on out there in the country right now is the fact structural change is suggested.
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structural change is somewhat threatening. the threat of structural change in addition to the dialogue and rhetoric pumped out over the last several months about it has injected a large element of fear to a lot of people in this country. fear seems to be driving the dialogue. >> mike, you are dead on. they did hear the phrase death panel. that's not in the bill. what they're hearing is obama says, you know, half of all expenses are in the last six months of life. we've got to cut those costs. $500 billion has got to be cut out of medicare. you have folks in their 70s and 80s out there and saying, what is he talking about? you hear about advisers going to come to your house voluntarily and all this. if that is what's causing the fear and apprehension and sarah palin captured it when she used that phrase, admittedly it's not in the bill, but obama hasn't explained it and said that part of the bill is going out. why did they run away from it if
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it's a good idea? >> pat, you're giving sarah palin credit for making something up that happened to hit a chord with people who were worried. that's called demagoguery. that's not something -- i mean, she's making stuff up. it can't be taken out of the bill because it was never -- >> it is in the bill. the death panels -- how can you describe it -- >> you've already conceded there's no such thing as the death panel in the bill. i think barack obama did, indeed, represent change to a lot of people. i think not just change in health care but change in the economy and financial regulation and lots of things and also i think cultural change. he represents -- he has a wider view of america, trying to make a lot of other people share. this minority -- it is still a minority -- are responding against him in a very volatile way. they're easily whipped up by sarah palin and other conservatives. >> pat, let me ask you, if you
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are in the white house, as fearful a thought that is, that would put a lot of fear into people. >> i've been in three. >> i know that. if you were there today, how would you handle, how would you tell the president and his people to handle the threat, the polarization, the toxicity in our politics? >> i think he's gotten behind the curve. there's a lot of things that are out there. let's take this so-called advisers. he immediately said, that's going to be out of the bill and so did the finance committee. those things are going to be gone. the very fact they ran away from it i think contributed to the nervousness, the apprehensions this may be true. what i would have done early on, i think obama should have defined the bill, lims. he's got about five of them sitting out there. there are things different in each of these things. the opponents are going after him effectively, hammering him, he's on the defensive on all of
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these issues. he's gotten behind the curve completely. i would advise him to do what he's going to do wednesday night. i wonder if it's not too late to get a majority bill. >> i agree with pat buchanan. i'm waiting for the lightning bolt. but one of the -- i would add to that that, you know, when barack obama had a chance to define the health care debate and define the health care plan as his, he didn't do that. instead he allowed health care reform to become equated with congress which has approval ratings half of his. he took the less of the popular political entity in town and said they are the guys and gals really in charge of health care, not me. i think that has hurt him from the get-go. he's the one who had the standing and popularity going into this episode to sort of say, i have a ts what i'm going to fight for. i'm going to explain it to you clearly. i'm going to push congress as best i can to deliver what i think is best. that would have been a much
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closer to winning strategy. he's playing catchup. >> mike, what has happened is the opponents have taken pieces of it and defined the bill for the country and the bill they've defined has been losing support steadily going down, down, down, down. >> pat buchanan, who knew mother jones and david corn. >> i think he dated mother jones. >> thank you. up next, president obama's big speech tomorrow night. how can he unite his own party to agree on health care reform? ever worn your clothes in the shower? if you're using other moisturizing body washes, you might as well be. you see, their moisturizer sits on top of skin, almost as if you're wearing it. only new dove deep moisture has nutriummoisture, a breakthrough formula with natural moisturizers... that can nourish deep down. it's the most effective natural nourishment ever. new dove deep moisture with nutriummoisture. superior natural nourishment for your skin.
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welcome back to "hardball." time for "the politics fix." david gregory, moderator of "meet the press." ron brownstein, atlantic media's political director and columnist for "national journal." david, david, david, let me ask you this. now, it's as if i've come in and landed from another planet. i'm seeing the president of the united states attacked for basically telling kids to do their homework and brush after every meal. i'm being told that tomorrow could be a break or make night for his presidency on health care. i heard harry reid, the senate majority leader this afternoon basically saying the public option, maybe it will happen and speaker pelosi standing along side of him saying, no, it has to happen. what's the deal tomorrow night? what does the president have to do? what's he going to do.
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>> i think the primary think he's got to do is get the american people on board and try to persuade them and really drum up for public support for this plan than now exists. the problem with august is the debate got off the rails. the white house knows it. the white house understands at this point there's too few people in america who have any idea who the president wants to do about health care. he's got to change that. he's got to make it something that's simple her, got to be able to own it. that at its very core is what tomorrow's is about. about reaching the american people. if he can do some of that, turn that around, he can apply a little more pressure within his own party. republicans may be too far gone now. within his own party he can wield more coverage. >> how is it this most articulate of presidents, this guy who took the country by storm based largely on his ability to give a speech and communicate with the public now has his fraed public option out there. most people i know think it's something like take a bus or buy a prius.
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public option. how did this happen. >> first of all, it's important to recognize how tangental to the overplan it is. david and i talked about before, only 12 million people would be oun the public option by 1219 compared to 190 million people in private insurance 16-1. for this to become a litmus test for the left seems to be overstated. how did he get to this impasse? a fundamental contradiction from his inside strategy and outside strategy. trying to learn from clinton in '93. he did not want to be overly prescripted. he wanted to give them a plot of flexibility to find the water line, make the agreements and deals they could get the bill forward out of the senate and out of the houses. the cost of that, that's worked reasonably well as an inside game up until august. he did not have a specific proposal to go to the country with and say if you vote for health care, support health car care, you're going to get x, y and z. the conservative opponents
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filled in the blanks at a time when the big institutions who fought health care reform in the past, including the ama, insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry were either supporting him or largely neutral. in many ways the outside game was hurt by the strategy they those to pursue in the inside game. >> off of what ron just said, using facts, only 12 million people would affected by the public option in year 2019, i think those are the numbers you used. that practically begs the question of this white house, do they know what they're doing? >> well, i think the difficulty is that -- i talked to an astute republican today who made the point this is like social security in this regard. there are so many moving pieces to it that you're trying to sell all at one time. i think that's where the white house has gotten bogged down. what is it that they're ultimately selling on this thing? you'll hear the president talking a lot about security and stability which is what president clinton was stilling in '93 and '94 at the end when they got in trouble as well.
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i think that's right. the public option is a relatively smaller piece of it. there are two big pieces which is how many people are you going to cover who don't have health insurance? are you going to drive costs down in the health care system? . doesn't look like it if the health care system is still out of control. now you just have more people who are going to be in it with insurance. that's the fundamental problem. the president can't get bogged down on all of that. he has to find something he can actually deliver, sell and deliver. >> mike, if i jump in. the irony is on those two points david mentioned there's actually substantial consensus on how to proceed. in terms of expanding coverage, the basic idea is that you have a mandate on individuals to buy insurance with government subsidies to help them aforward it. in return the industry insurance has to end delisle of coverage base on pre-existing conditions. there's broad agreement on instituting a series of experiments in medicare to move away from paying for quantity to
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paying for quantity. creating an expedited commission it would have authority to move the experiments that work more quickly into law. that basing approach has a lot of support not only within the democratic party but among groups in the past who have opposed reform. the challenge for obama is to focus the debate on the area of relatively broad consensus which we'll see tomorrow with the groups like walmart and seiu meeting to talk about their shared vision of reform. focus back on that and away from these polarizing and real but still secondary, i think, issues to the overall package. >> we're going to be right back with david gregory and ron brownstein for more of "the politics fix." ( conversation )
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back with david gregory and ron brownstein. earlier in the show we had gerry conley of virginia on. he likes the public option but it's not theology to him. his main intent to any legislation is to get to yes. my question to you and ron is tomorrow night how does the president of the united states get a majority of people in the house of representatives, specifically, to get to yes and doesn't he have to get something out of this ordeal? >> well, look, i think the way he does that is he says to liberals in his party, look, look what we've got here. are you going to be responsible for taking down health care reform?
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what we have in the way of an agreement now with the pharmaceutical companies, with the insurance companies is something the likes of ted kennedy couldn't achieve over three decades of trying. let's not -- the cliche, let the perfect be the enemy of the good. the other thing i think he's going to say whether he uses these words are not is, hey, guys, do you think it's going to get easier to pass health care reform next year? it's not going to get better. let us pass something that's significant here and not take it down because we haven't achieved what we think is the only pure approach and try to build on it lat later. >> how pivotal is it, ron, tomorrow night in the terms of his next three years of presidency, in terms of his off-year elections a year from now? >> the unfolding the health care is pivotal to the midterm and next three years. his test of not only his ability to lead the democratic party, a test o the democratic party's ability to be led. ultimately what's been clarified over the last month